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21 April 2022 | Story Lunga Luthuli | Photo Supplied
Lizandré Mulder
Lizandré Mulder, University of the Free State LLB graduate, does not believe in having a role model, but in striving to be a better version of herself.

Moving from Jansenville – a town outside Uitenhage – to Bloemfontein for her LLB studies, things got off to a shaky start for Lizandré Mulder. New in a ‘big town’, the ‘country girl’ felt out of her element and not used to big-city life. Thanks to her lecturers, the journey to a legal qualification at the University of the Free State (UFS) ended with an average final-year mark of 80% for the Law graduate.

Back in Jansenville, Lizandré’s neighbour nicknamed her ‘klein prokureurtjie (little lawyer)’ as she was growing up, because she had a ‘habit of arguing’, which motivated her to choose law as a career. She says, “arguing with facts earlier, has turned into a passion”. “The competitive side of me always wants to win; I guess that makes me the perfect candidate for a future advocate,” she says.

Managing undergraduate studies, Lizandré – who is also an accomplished athlete – says all she did was study and train. “The only thing I struggled with was my sleeping schedule, as I was constantly tired from hard training, and I studied till the morning hours while I had to wake up again early for morning training.”

The track, field, and cross-country runner has received numerous national medals for the sport and will unfortunately miss the invitation to the annual Excellence Awards in the Faculty of Law, as she will be competing in this year’s South African Athletics Championships in Cape Town on 22 April 2022.

Graduating with the LLB degree, Lizandré plans to finish her master’s degree with a possible topic on the legality of human gene editing in South Africa for the purposes of disease treatment or the prevention thereof.

Lizandré does not believe in having a role model, but to “always try to better myself in every aspect of life. I always believed that true inspiration and motivation come from within”.

After completing her master’s degree, Lizandré will decide on her future career path. She says: “I am still deciding whether I want to remain in Bloemfontein or relocate to Potchefstroom, as the latter has a law firm specialising in medical negligence, a field I would like to specialise in. Besides this, the two cities also boast the best athletics coaches in DB Prinsloo, Head of KovsieSport, and Jean Verster in Potchefstroom has mentored South African award-winning runner, Caster Semenya.

“Somewhere in the future, I definitely also plan on doing my doctoral degree in Law,” says Lizandré.

News Archive

Experts to exchange insights on historical trauma
2014-02-20

Programme

An international group of scholars and practitioners will meet at the Bloemfontein Campus of the University of the Free State on Tuesday 25 and Wednesday 26 February 2014. This will be the first research symposium in a series of four in which experts will share their insights on the aftermath of mass trauma and violence. The symposium brings together scholars from across the globe whose research explores various aspects of historical trauma in Chile, Peru, Cambodia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Mozambique, Germany as well as South Africa.

Discussions on South Africa will include the historical traumas of the Anglo-Boer War and the apartheid years. Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, who is co-hosting the symposium with Prof Björn Krondorfer of Northern Arizona University, explains that the gathering is designed as an International Research Forum with the aim to foster multidisciplinary collaborations. The forum is expected to lead to innovative scholarship, new avenues of inquiry and the advancement of knowledge.

The symposium will kick off on Tuesday 25 February with a morning session from 8:45–12:00. The UFS community is welcome to attend this open forum.This session will include speakers such as Prof Kimberly Theidon of Harvard University and Dr Susan Glisson, Executive Director of the William Winter Center for Racial Reconciliation at the University of Mississippi. Prof Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector, will deliver an address followed by a discussion on the Human and Academic Projects at the university as strategies of transformation.

The public session will close with a students’ round-table discussion of the Hector Pieterson iconic photo of the 1976 Soweto Uprisings staged as an event in the Anglo-Boer War.

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